Andrew Johnson National Historic Site

Andrew Johnson came to Greeneville with his mother and stepfather in September 1826 and found work in a tailor shop. His own one-room shop from the 1830s survives inside a memorial building Tennessee put up around it in 1923. Johnson bought the brick Greek Revival homestead in 1851. He served as military governor of Tennessee from 1862 to 1865, became president on April 15, 1865, was impeached in 1868 and acquitted in May, and returned to the Senate in 1875. He died on July 31 of that year and is buried on Signal Hill, in what is now a national cemetery.

Johnson enslaved people, and the Park Service names them. Sam was bought on November 29, 1842, at about thirteen, and Dolly, his half-sister, on January 3, 1843, at about nineteen. Henry was bought in 1857, also about thirteen. Dolly's children Liz, Florence and Will were born into slavery, and Will's death certificate lists Johnson's son Robert as his father. By family tradition Johnson freed them on August 8, 1863. No document survives. In 1871 Sam Johnson served as officer of the day at an August 8 celebration in Greeneville, where Johnson spoke, and he worked to make it a regional event that spread across several states and drew crowds in Knoxville.

The park covers 16 acres in three units: the visitor center with the tailor shop, the homestead, shown by guided tour only, and the cemetery. His unfurnished early home stands nearby on East Depot Street.